Dunk Tank

Empty eyes, this is the sky
pooled in the basin of your irises,

this is the blank face of sorrow.

She is stone-made, she is heavy.
She wraps 
her tender palms
like wind, soft 
around the nape 
of your neck,

plunging you beneath a silver-lined lake.
In the crook of her ribs, her heart is:

torn-top, 	drinking glass, 	dunk tank.

Loyal as a dog at your heels, vicious too,
she offers the most proud act of love;

sorrow will not leave. 

That is worth something, 

worth her cold shoulder
glistening in lamplight 
as she thumbs through 
your great miseries.

Waving from the edge of the diving board,
smiling like the preparation for a bad joke.

She’s pushing those clouds into images
of grievances untouchable,  shapes
of the people she slaughtered
and replaced. 

Sorrow does not know
how you want to be loved, 
she does not care.

 She’ll give you her interpretation,
finishing your sentences
with her empty eyes,
gaze of the cold sun,

some sort of god, 
my love. My love
pushes me under, 
drags me out
and closes my eyes 
with her fingertips.








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